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Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery, Alabama According to the historian David Beito of the University of Alabama, African Americans in Montgomery "nurtured the modern civil rights movement." On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Martin Luther King, Jr., then the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, and E.D. Nixon, a local civil rights advocate, founded the Montgomery Improvement Association to organize the boycott. In June 1956, the US District Court Judge Frank M. Johnson ruled that Montgomery's bus racial segregation was unconstitutional. After the US Supreme Court upheld the ruling in November, the city desegregated the bus system, and the boycott was ended. Opponents organized mob violence with police collaboration at the Greyhound Bus Station during the Freedom Ride of May 1961. Outraged national reaction resulted in the desegregation of interstate public transportation. Martin Luther King returned to Montgomery in 1965. Local civil rights leaders in Selma had been protesting Jim Crow laws that prevented blacks from registering to vote. Following the shooting of a man after a civil rights rally, the leaders decided to march to Montgomery to petition Governor George Wallace to allow free voter registration. The violence they encountered contributed to Congressional passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, to enforce the rights of African Americans and other minorities to vote. On February 7, 1967, a devastating fire broke out at Dale's Penthouse, a restaurant and lounge on the top floor of the Walter Bragg Smith apartment building (now called Capital Towers) at 7 Clayton Street downtown. Twenty-six people lost their lives. In recent years, Montgomery has grown and diversified its economy. Active in restoring the downtown, the city adopted a master plan in 2007; it includes the revitalization of Court Square and the riverfront. Geography at Montgomery in 2004]] Montgomery is located at . According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which of it is land and of it (0.52%) is water. The city is built over rolling terrain at an elevation of about above sea level Cityscape Downtown Montgomery lies along the southern bank of the Alabama River, about downstream from the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers. The most prominent feature of Montgomery's skyline is the , RSA Tower, built in 1996 by the Retirement Systems of Alabama. Other prominent buildings include 60 Commerce Street, 8 Commerce Street, RSA Dexter Avenue Building, and many other structures(See Tallest Buildings in Montgomery, Alabama). Downtown also contains many state and local government buildings, including the Alabama State Capitol. The Capitol is located atop a hill at one end of Dexter Avenue, along which also lies the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was pastor. Both the Capitol and Dexter Baptist Church are listed as National Historic Landmarks by the U.S. Department of the Interior. Other notable buildings include RSA Dexter Avenue, RSA Headquarters, Alabama Center for Commerce, RSA Union, and the Renaissance Hotel and Spa. One block south of the Capitol is the First White House of the Confederacy, the 1835 Italianate-style house in which President Jefferson Davis and family lived while the capital of the Confederacy was in Montgomery. Montgomery's third National Historic Landmark is Union Station. Train service to Montgomery ceased in 1989, but today Union Station is part of the Riverwalk park development, which includes an amphitheater, a riverboat dock and Riverwalk Stadium. Three blocks east of the Convention Center, Old Alabama Town showcases more than 50 restored buildings from the 19th century. The Riverwalk is part of a larger plan to revitalize the downtown area and connect it to the waterfront. The plan includes urban forestry, infill development, and façade renovation to encourage business and residential growth. A Convention Center, completed in 2007, is expected to encourage growth in the downtown area. South of downtown, across Interstate 85, lies Alabama State University. ASU's campus was built in Colonial Revival architectural style from 1906 until the beginning of World War II. Surrounding ASU are the Garden District, and Cloverdale Historic District. Houses in these areas date from around 1875 until 1949, and are in Late Victorian and Gothic Revival styles. Huntingdon College is on the southwestern edge of Cloverdale. The campus was built in the 1900s in Tudor Revival and Gothic Revival styles. ASU, the Garden District, Cloverdale, and Huntingdon are all listed on the National Register of Historic Places as historic districts. Montgomery's east side is the fastest-growing part of the city. The city's two largest shopping malls (Eastdale Mall and The Shoppes at Eastchase), as well as many big-box stores and residential developments are on the east side. The area is also home of the Wynton M. Blount Cultural Park, a park which contains the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. Prattville, located in Autauga County to the northwest, is the second-largest city in the Montgomery Metropolitan Area. Other area towns are Pike Road to the southeast, Millbrook to the north (Elmore County), and Wetumpka to the northeast (Elmore County). Climate Montgomery has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa), with short, mild winters, warm springs and autumns, and long, hot, humid summers. The daily average temperature in January is , and there are 3.4 days of sub- lows; and below is extremely rare. The daily average in July is , with highs exceeding on 86 days per year and on 3.9. Summer afternoon heat indices, much more often than the actual air temperature, are frequently at or above 100 °F. The diurnal temperature variation tends to be large in spring and autumn. Rainfall is well-distributed throughout the year, though January through March are the wettest, and October is significantly drier than the other months. Snowfall occurs only during some winters, and even then is usually light. Substantial snowstorms are rare, but do occur approximately once every 10 years. Extremes range from on [[Great Blizzard of 1899|February